Binders are used for holding a wide variety of items, including sheets of physical media, such as loose sheets of paper and the like. A spring clamp binder includes a cover and at least one spring clamp, which applies a clamping force for retaining items inserted between the clamping surfaces of the spring clamp. In some spring clamp binders, a front cover and a back cover are attached to opposite sides of one or more spring clamps that are located in the spine of the binder. In operation, the front and back covers are folded back against the sides of the spring clamps, whereby the front and back covers act as levers and the spine acts as a fulcrum in opening the spring clamps to enable items to be inserted between the clamping surfaces of the spring clamps.
Currently available spring clamp binders typically are sufficient for informal and non-professional binding applications. Such binders, however, do not provide robust and aesthetically pleasing sheet retention capabilities, nor are they designed for efficient and cost-effective manufacture. Therefore, what are needed are spring clamp binders with improved sheet retention mechanisms that provide robust and aesthetically pleasing binding results and may be manufactured efficiently and cost-effectively.